


Blind and Deaf

by Puzzlebox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, POV Outsider, Redeemed Dudley Dursley, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 01:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puzzlebox/pseuds/Puzzlebox
Summary: Dudley is old enough now to know that monsters aren’t real, not the kind that lurk in the shadows and hide in children’s closets and drink humans’ blood, but that also means that he’s old enough to know that there are far worse monsters in the world.Mostly, he just wishes he had gone to back to sleep that night.





	Blind and Deaf

Sometimes Dudley wonders if monsters are real.

 

Not the ones that he complained to Mum about at the tender age of 6, the ones he made her check the closet for and under the bed, but the ones he sees sometimes after dinner on Saturday nights. What scares him even more is that he sees them too, sometimes, on lazy Sunday mornings, right in front of him but behind Harry, and when he sees him flinch, he wonders, just wonders, maybe if--

 

Dudley tries not to think about that.

 

It’s impossible, and Dudley often wonders if it’s some kind of trick, the way it comes and goes in a flash, and all that’s left is his frighteningly ordinary family in the dining room. 

 

Dudley can hardly say he’s the most perceptive of people-- he knows that he can miss the most blatant things right in front of his face if he’s not careful, but that was in the past. That was when he was a little kid, and now that he’s about to start third year, he’s a grown-up-- Mum and Dad said it themselves. Now, he’s old enough to know that monsters weren’t real, and that magic was, and so he must be seeing things in shadows where there oughtn’t be anything out of the ordinary. But now that he’s older, he’s also smarter, more observant. And he can’t help but think that maybe just because he’s never seen the darkness before doesn’t mean it hadn’t existed. 

 

Which is a ridiculous thought, because monsters don’t exist, and Dudley’s family is normal-- all but Harry (who isn’t really part of the family anyway, but wasn’t that the whole problem?)

 

And Dudley is old enough now to know that monsters aren’t real, not the kind that lurk in the shadows and hide in children’s closets and drink humans’ blood, but that also means that he’s old enough to know that there are far worse monsters in the world. 

 

One night, he wakes with a sob. It’s not his (he’s not a whiny baby, he doesn’t cry in his sleep), but it sounds familiar, but also faded, like from a dream or-- God forbid-- a memory. Dudley grumbles, turns over, and smacks his face down into his pillow with fervor. He’s just about drifted off when he hears it again-- this time more muted, but he’s awake now so it’s clearer. He presses his ear to the wall, and hears a dull thwack and another muffled sob. Harry’s probably having a nightmare, or he’s being a brat, making noise to ruin Dudley’s sleep so he doesn’t do well in his wrestling match tomorrow, yes that’s it, he’s always been jealous of him. Dudley convinces himself of this until the horrid sounds cease, and after that, he covers his ears with the pillow and convinces himself that monsters don’t exist.

 

Dudley is very good at convincing himself.

 

He’s also convinced himself that the  _ incidents  _ haven’t been getting worse, or more frequent. And now that Harry’s only there for the summers, Dudley has most of the year for his worries of monsters to fade, until he’s practically forgotten all about them. After all, the monsters only come out when Harry is there, so its equally easy for Dudley to believe that it’s all Harry’s fault anyway. And he believes that because he likes to sleep at night and it’s getting harder to.

 

And he’s kept this up for months, but actually years-- he’s so beyond ignoring it that he’s practically blind. And believe it or not, Dudley prefers things this way. He pushes away the thoughts because they leave a pit in his stomach and a bad taste in his mouth, and if there’s one thing that Dudley likes, it’s the opposite. But as much as ignorance is bliss, it is easily ripped away on sweltering June evenings, when Dudley is just old enough then to understand. 

 

Dudley likes to be deaf as well as blind. Behind the closed door of his bedroom, he shoves his face into his Gameboy, his headphones plugged in, and cranks the volume to 11. His mum always chastises him, saying he’ll lose his hearing like that, but Dudley likes the sounds that Donkey Kong makes when he’s hurtling boulders, so he does it anyway.

 

On one such occasion, it’s dark outside, his mum and dad have probably gone off to bed, but he squints at his alarm clock to double check. It’s 2 a.m., so Dudley’s pretty sure it’s safe because his dad snores as loud as the tube, and his mum’s a heavy sleeper, but he steps out of bed quietly anyway, just in case. 

 

He uses the light of the Gameboy to guide him around the piles of clothes and games and shoes and magazines that litter his bedroom floor, but when he shuffles into the hallway, he finds it dimly lit. There’s a band of light escaping from the bottom of Harry’s door. Dudley doesn’t pay it any mind, his earphones still blasting. It’s hardly the first time that Harry has insomnia, and how’s Dudley to judge when he’s awake as well? Instead, he tiptoes past (his parent’s room right underneath his very feet), and slowly walks down the stairs to grab a drink from the kitchen. 

 

Glass of water in hand, he makes his way up the stairs, sleepily. Perhaps 2 a.m. was a bit too late to be staying up, especially on a school night, but the game had just come out, and Dudley wanted to get to level 10 before any of his friends. Whatever, sleep is for the weak. 

 

With feather-light feet he inches back across the hallway, when he feels a thud from the floorboards. They vibrate his soles, and his heart gives an echo of the feeling. While Dudley is blind and deaf, he can’t stop himself from feeling, and so he halts suddenly. He’s right outside Harry’s door. The pale light from his Gameboy flickers off as he presses down on the power button, and he slides the headphones off to rest on his shoulders. But there isn’t any noise, not at first, only the thundering of his own heart in his ears. He hears a faint  _ “Please”  _ and another thud, quiet but not quiet enough for Dudley to ignore. 

 

Instead, he tucks his Gameboy into the waistband of his pants, and hesitantly reaches for the doorknob. The door, miraculously, opens without a creak, and the light floods into the hallway, but all Dudley sees is darkness. 

 

Harry’s in the corner, his eyes squeezed shut, and his brow pinched, and he’s trying not to sob. There’s a monster there too, but Dudley only sees the back of it, and its hands wrapped around Harry’s wrists and grabbing Harry’s curls and slamming his head into the wall.

 

And Dudley’s so preoccupied by the monster’s hands, he forgets his own. The glass slips from his grasp and shatters on the hardwood. The water soaks into his socks and Dudley shivers and gasps, but he doesn’t look away. For the first time in his life, he can’t. It’s different this time, it’s not a piece of evidence after the fact like a flinch or a word or a bruise, it’s happened right in front of him. And he know’s that he’s now supposed to tell someone-- an adult (a real one, because Dudley’s never felt so small and childlike in his life)-- but who’s left after this?

 

Suddenly, there are two pairs of eyes on Dudley. The perpetrator has separated from his cousin, and now faces him. Dudley can just make out Harry farther back, still pressed against the wall with wide eyes. He has a bruise beginning to form on his temple and his hands are shaking where he cradles them to his chest. Dudley knows now that monsters are real.

 

“Dad?”

 

The word sounds too loud even though he barely gets it out. It’s less than a whisper, it’s more of a breath. 

 

“Go back to bed, Dudley.”

 

“What--” Dudley hates how lost he sounds, but mostly how lost he feels, “What’s going on?”

 

“Go back to bed, Dudley,” his father says, “We can talk about it later.”

 

“But-”

 

“Now, Dudley.”

 

And Dudley’s supposed to listen to his parents, but this time he hesitates. It’s not out of some sense of morality or defiance or heroism like he wishes, he’s just frozen. He’s not acting out of bravery like the protagonists of his comic books, he’s as terrified as he’s ever been, worse than in a nightmare. All he can think about is how many times has Harry’s light been on in the middle of the night, and how many years has he flinched away from his own uncle, and every dinner where Harry didn’t eat, and why didn’t Dad lock the door, why couldn’t he have just locked the door if he didn’t want anyone to come in? Dudley’s hand is still on the cold metal knob, grounding him, so he looks up at the vast array locks and it hits him like a ton of bricks even though he’s passed this door a million times. All of the locks are on the outside. 

 

There’s nothing that can keep the monsters out, not when they’re living in your home, not when they’re your own family.

 

Dudley hates himself a moment later, because his bottom lip starts to wobble, and then tears are streaming down his face and he looks back at the now watery trainwreck. And as much as Dudley wishes that he couldn’t recognize his father in that moment, so as to make it easier to separate the two identities rather than reconcile them, the resemblance is clear. He can’t pretend he’s a different man, this is who he’s always been-- Dudley just hasn’t been around to see it. 

 

His father’s expression changes slightly at the sight of Dudley’s tears, but that somehow makes it worse. Why is Dudley’s dad and Harry’s uncle such different people? Why does he hate his son’s sadness, but relish in his nephew’s? Dudley doesn’t want a monster to love him. And more than anything, Dudley doesn’t want to love a monster, but he does. He’s just a kid.

 

Dudley sniffles, and manages to respond despite his throat closing up, “Let’s all go back to bed, Dad. Please?”

 

He gets a nod in response. His father begins to take heavy steps toward him and towards the door. This time, as he passes him, there’s no friendly pat on his shoulder, or an affectionate ruffle of his hair, and Dudley’s glad because he’s afraid he might flinch from his own father. There’s just the crunching of glass beneath his dad’s slippers, the squeak of water on hardwoods, and the thundering in his head masking hollow sobs. All Dudley wants to do is shove his headphones back on because he’d prefer to hurt his ears instead of his heart-- it’s too hard to listen to. 

 

These are the sounds of his family breaking.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and let me know what you think!


End file.
